It’s Our Future spokesperson Edward Miller has condemned the signing of the NZ-UK Free Trade Agreement, which he says fails to do anything meaningful about deepening economic inequality, increasing corporate control of the economy and runaway climate change.

“The Government is claiming that this deal will deliver for Maori, women and small businesses, but at its heart this is a deal that seeks to lock in and expand the power of major corporations to extract profits from working people and the environment”, said Miller.

Miller said that the Government’s approach to these agreements is even more problematic than the days of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. It refuses to address current and predicted crises, including the climate crisis and new pandemics. Instead, it signs up to deals that worsen these crises and make it harder to respond.

The clearest example is the sidelining of demands for NZ to make support for a “Peoples’ Vaccine” a prerequisite to signing the agreement with the UK.

Miller recalls that “In December 2021 33 groups, representing hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders, requested the NZ Government make support for a waiver to WTO intellectual property rules for vaccines a prerequisite to signing this agreement.”

The UK is amongst a handful of countries that refused to support an equitable global vaccine rollout, constraining economic development in the low income countries where primary vaccination rates remain below 20%.

Trade Minister O’Connor’s muddled response to that request focused on dismissing their legitimate concerns, rather than addressing the very real threat that global intellectual property rules, enshrined in free trade agreements, pose to billions of human lives.

Miller said that nominal references to climate change follow the same pattern, ignoring widespread public concerns in Aotearoa and globally.

“Both Governments will be championing the agreement’s commitments around climate change, but these provisions are fundamentally toothless and simply reinforce commitments made elsewhere.”

Miller said the agreement would hinder an equitable pandemic recovery, undermining the ability of the state to support living standards for working people hammered by a major upwards wealth transfer.

“How long will the government just keep rolling over the same ideologically-driven trade rules, and when will it start to address the crises facing the world?”

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